Facebook bids to contain spread as coronavirus hoaxes go viral
IT TOOK THE THREAT OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC, BUT SOCIAL MEDIA GIANT IS FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGING RESPONSIBILITY TO AXE MISINFORMATION
Millions have seen claims that Vitamin C, air purifiers, cannabis and even bleach can guard against or cure coronavirus. All of them are dangerously wrong... In addition, the conspiracists have stoked a tsunami of anti-China sentiment.
AMID all the turmoil and chaos in which we live, it is tragic to think the one thing that may yet unite the world is not a common fight for good.
It would be heartening if all nations were brought together in say, the battle against climate change or ending poverty but instead it is the deadly coronavirus that is uniting us.
Experts don’t yet know how contagious, or how deadly, this new virus is, but the deepening crisis has sparked panic in cities around the world which are bracing for a possible flood of infections as stock and oil prices plunge.
Experts in just about every global business are worrying over the many supply chains that could be disrupted – from prescription drugs to car manufacturing – if the outbreak evolves into an even more widespread epidemic.
Given the extent of these anxieties, it’s a surprise more hasn’t been done to plan for an outbreak like this one.
With at least 490 people dead, there remains no clear plan on how to respond to its spread.
But America’s social media giants have shown us that there are plenty of wrong ways.
Although the coronavirus may have so far infected more than 20,000 people worldwide, millions more have been affected by the hoaxes spread widely online, fuelled by unchecked conspiracy theorists.
Only now, a full month after the first confirmed case was discovered, has Facebook announced it will remove some posts, pictures and videos peddling misinformation about the disease.
They include suggestions the virus is part of a Chinese plot to create a bioweapon with stolen samples from a Canadian lab.
Others relate to the prevention or treatment of the virus and are clearly more serious.
Millions have seen claims that Vitamin C, air purifiers, cannabis and even bleach can guard against or cure coronavirus.
All are dangerously wrong. In addition, the conspiracists have stoked a tsunami of anti-China sentiment around the globe.
Whole Far Eastern communities have been left ostracised while their children, on both sides of the Atlantic, have become the target of cruel schoolyard bullies.
Such posts, which have been highlighted by leading health professionals and community leaders, have led Facebook to finally vow to remove them from its platform.
The move is unusually aggressive for the online titan. As the world’s biggest social network, it usually restricts the spread of content containing health misinformation to its 2.9 billion monthly users but still allows the original posts to stay up.
For their part, Twitter and YouTube are still lagging behind, taking half-hearted measures by directing users who search for coronavirus to information provided by health experts first, although not removing the offending post spewing misinformation.
At least Facebook is willing to take dramatic action in the most dramatic of circumstances but does that go far enough? The damage their lack of control creates was evident during the Zika and Ebola viruses and yet still they did not learn.
How many times must these US tech giants put profit before people?
Already they avoid paying billions in taxes to the communities in which they operate – money that could be spent on the health services that today are faced with dealing with coronavirus. Their CEOs would do well to ask themselves what is the good in allowing life-threatening hoaxes to thrive? More importantly, what’s the harm?